Slip of the Brain
by starofoberon
Summary: Momentary lapse of intelligence on the BAU's jet. Team, Morgan-centric. Bridge between other fics.


Disclaimer: Not mine, all theirs, but, oh, so much fun to push around!

A/N: Rated M only because it connects between a previous M-rated fic [Home Demonstration] and an apparent *cough* upcoming fic that will also be rated M. Those of you with more experience with the system, I'll welcome any help I can get navigating the ratings here!

Slip of the Brain

OK, so the volume level in the cabin got a little bit higher than it usually did when they were flying home from a case that had a more-than-satisfactory conclusion. Out-and-out triumphs don't happen often in the BAU, let alone as swiftly as this one had, and the men in particular edged toward rowdy.

Eventually, JJ _ahemmed_ a couple times. When that made no difference, she called out, "Could we have just a _little_ bit less Alpha Male in here? It's a small cabin, guys, and we're outnumbered."

And Morgan put both feet and a knee into his mouth. "Hey," he said (OK, with maybe just a pinch of attitude; the girls just love a little attitude), "Hotch, Rossi and me, it's three and three …."

And the instant he got the words out he realized the enormity of his error.

He had lumped Spencer Reid in with the chicks.

And he couldn't say, _Oops, sorry, forgot you were back there_, because he had indicated three females as analogues to three males.

_Holy fuckin' shit -- there is no way out of this._

Morgan felt his throat, his jaw, his cheeks growing dusky and hot. He wished he could do a Porky Pig, just stutter _Th-th-th-that's all folks_, and pull a black screen, lens-like, in on himself until he vanished.

Rossi's lower jaw had begun to jut into bulldog mode, never a reassuring sign. JJ, eyes wide, had both hands over her open mouth. Prentiss (no help at all) looked to be on the cusp of a giggle.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aaron Hotchner make a very small _settle down_ gesture, barely discernible, just three fingers, at Rossi. Rossi's blossom into belligerence stopped dead. He offered a fleeting smile and returned to his book.

Frantically, Derek marshaled what arguments he could to defend his hopeless position: Reid's speech pattern was pressured, which raised its pitch about a major third. His interpersonal skills were on the iffy side, and sometimes when he spewed facts, he gave off the sense he was trying to win approval from the rest of the team. He wore his hair long, and when it got damp, it curled all over the place. He could be the poster boy for tactile defensiveness.

Nope.

There's no way out of this one.

Morgan turned toward Reid at last, hoping against hope that before they made eye contact he would think of something to say. Something to do. Something intelligent and professional. Actually, about now he would settle for "not all that lame."

"Hey, Reid," he said, pitifully.

But Reid's expression seemed warm, calm, and – if anything – more confident than usual. "Glad my protective coloration is still working," he said in a slow voice pitched at least a major fifth down from where Derek expected it.

Then he gave one of those shy-awkward-Reid smiles, brushed his hair out of his face, and returned to whatever he was doing on his PDA.

Trying to be inconspicuous about it, Morgan glanced around the cabin. Everyone appeared to have just returned to whatever they had been doing. Prentiss still suppressed a laugh, so she most likely had been absorbed in her magazine all along, and had missed the whole exchange.

_Man, you dodged a big hairy old bullet on that one, my friend._

His vital signs backed out of fight-or-flight mode. He settled deeper into the cushions of the bench and did a post-incident review.

OK, the obvious opener was that he had screwed up spectacularly.

Prentiss could be safely left out of the equation because she seemed not to have noticed it. JJ had been shocked, but not enough to call him out on it right away, probably because of all that Alpha Male stuff still intimidating her. Rossi had rushed to Reid's defense.

But _Hotch_. Just that little _leave-it-alone_ finger wiggle at Rossi – what the hell was that all about?

Being unabashedly someone who intended to move upward in the Bureau hierarchy, Morgan took a few minutes to ponder what management lesson he could learn from Hotchner's low-key response.

He came up with two possibilities. The nasty one was that Hotch considered Derek a threat to his own career path even as Erin Strauss considered Hotchner a threat to her ambitions. Hotch – on his own, or even at the suggestion of Rossi – might be giving Derek enough rope and holding back to see whether he would hang himself.

The other, considerably more hopeful, started with the fact that, in spite of everyone's tendency to think of Spencer Reid as a kid, he was damn near thirty now. He had been playing with the big boys for five years and had consistently pulled his own weight and beyond in a job that only a few dozen people in the country could handle.

So maybe this was merely superb leadership. By expecting Reid to defend himself, Hotchner sent a message that Reid was mature and the equal of anyone else on the team. He could fight his own damn battles.

OK, that left … Reid.

Reid with that strange lower-pitched, confident voice. Relaxed posture, steady eye contact, comfortable in his own skin – he had seen that side of Reid before. But when? Where?

Ohh, right. That night at his apartment, when he claimed that he was a dominant by choice. That he was good at "giving it rough." The night he dared Derek and Hotch to give it a try.

But he had been woofing, right? Just another facet of Reid's sometimes impenetrable notion of humor?

The imp in Morgan visualized – well, tried to visualize – Reid and Hotch, well, um …

_Ick. Nope, erase that image. Bleach brain and try again._

Back to interpretation two: Hotch and his excellent leadership skills.

He got up, moved down the aisle, and sat down next to Hotchner. "Man, I have to hand it to you," he said. "I was so out of line there, I had no idea how to get back. I didn't mean anything, didn't mean the way it came out, but it was there, and it was inexcusable."

He thought he was probably laying it on a little too thick, but apparently his tongue was still fueled by adrenaline. "If there's some kind of disciplinary action, I'll take my medicine, but the way you defused that was awesome. I have so much to learn from you."

_Ooh, my bad. That one was way over the top in the suck-up Olympics._

Hotchner turned only slightly. "Actually," he said in low voice, "I learned from you, because I couldn't imagine what I would say if I got myself into that kind of corner. I knew Reid could handle himself, but I wasn't sure how you were going to run your end of it. And you did what turned out to be the right thing. When Reid deflected it, you dropped it."

Bless him, more great leadership, Morgan thought, making him feel good about the fumbled save.

Feeling confidence flowing back through his veins, Morgan dared a little elbow nudge. "Hey," he murmured, "remember the night Reid told us that he--"

"Yes," Hotchner interrupted in a blandly pleasant tone. "And it would probably do you some good to remember it, too."

"You think he really does?"

Hotch stared forward for the space of a couple heartbeats, then said, "I have absolutely no doubt."

~ end ~


End file.
